


the healing of harms

by arizayna



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: JUST, M/M, help me, i can't write happy, i don't know what this is, it's midnight and this is the first thing i have written in three months, uh, with a lot of sad, yes - Freeform, zayn and niall - Freeform, ziall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-07
Updated: 2013-11-07
Packaged: 2017-12-31 19:22:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1035446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arizayna/pseuds/arizayna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>fairy tales don’t sound like this. niall wants a prince and a castle and someone to save him from the dragon, but zayn’s hot breath and clawed fingers leave niall convinced that maybe he’s stumbled into the wrong end of the story, now he’s falling in love with the dragon and he has the burns to prove it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the healing of harms

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zayniall](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zayniall/gifts), [andidmarryyouharry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/andidmarryyouharry/gifts).



> i actually wrote something!! for the first time in, like, five months. god, this feels so good. this is especially especially for victoria because (as previously stated) she is the life force behind my beating heart and she's really encouraging and she made me feel good enough about myself to finish this. love you, doll. ohh, also to my cousin yaali (god bless ur soul you're not even in the one direction fandom) but she helped me to beta the fic and made it better! also to kate because she's great and cute and wonderful *u*

When Niall falls in love with Zayn, they’re sitting by the road with trembling hands and unlit cigarettes. It happens instantly, fervently, like the flame of a lighter bursting through the darkness and disappearing almost at once. But the momentary flash is powerful, wild, strong enough to leave burns in their chests.

And both of them feel it. They pretend not to, but they do.

Zayn’s fingers slip on the cigarettes for a moment, and Niall blinks at him. They look at each other, and they know. This is it. This is love. Niall had hoped for something milder, sweeter, something other than what feels like a beast clawing through his body, but this is it. This is what he gets, what they get. Neither of them deserves any more, or any less.

And they’re okay with that.

-

Zayn’s thighs move like express lanes, rivulets of gold and honey bleeding from his hands when they touch. He kisses Niall and he tastes like whiskey but there’s something stirring inside them, a tornado driving itself into their bodies. Niall pulls him in with hands coated in silent shame, already drunk and needing more, wanting more, wanting a _savior_ for the night. Zayn is all dark hair and dangerous tendons, mouth full of cigarette ash and moving so fast that Niall can’t tell if he’s kissing or killing.

This, for the moment, is what they’re both looking for. Not a place to sleep or eat or fuck, but a place to simply be. Niall buries the pieces of his heart inside Zayn’s chest and doesn’t tell him. Zayn does the same. They don’t tell each other about these things. They never do. But Niall can always feel it, can always hear the blood drumming under his fingertips when he presses his hands against Zayn’s chest; he tastes something heavy hidden under Zayn’s tongue when their mouths are cleaning up the messes they make.

And Niall knows. Just friends and mindless sex doesn’t feel like this. This is something louder, something larger, something more - something that they both can feel but neither are ready to admit yet. Niall likes to think of it as plastering himself like a tourniquet around Zayn’s bone-deep wounds, hiding the pain, covering it up with his body instead.

He feels like he’s writing himself like scribbled prose into Zayn’s life, hasty and coming too quick, but unwilling to leave. Fairy tales don’t sound like this. Niall wants a prince and a castle and someone to save him from the dragon, but Zayn’s hot breath and clawed fingers leave Niall convinced that maybe he’s stumbled into the wrong end of the story, now he’s falling in love with the dragon and he has the burns to prove it.

-

The first time Niall sees the beast in Zayn is more than a month after they first find each other, hummingbird wings beating tirelessly against one another. Zayn is drunk and he’s gotten into another fight again and Niall’s not enough to calm him down this time. There’s fighting and screaming and breaking of bottles, and then Zayn’s fists are raining down on Niall like hailstones, and Niall takes it and takes it and takes it, doesn’t say anything because he knows Zayn just needs to let it out. By the time Zayn’s knuckles are split and his eyes are shocked and dull, Niall’s lying on his stomach, the wind blown out of him, head spinning. Even the neighbours wake up and call to ask if everything is okay, and Niall says _of course everything is okay, why wouldn’t it be?_ but he’s crying as he shuts the door.   
  
Zayn stays in the room, hiding his face in his hands and refusing to look at him. Niall doesn’t have to see the tears on his face, and he tells himself it’s okay, he’s helping, this is helping. Zayn needs a way to take his pain out, or he’s going to harm himself, and Niall can’t let that happen. He crawls onto the bed beside him, takes Zayn’s face in his hands and kisses him until the bruises on his back stop hurting, until Zayn stops crying, until it feels like everything is okay again.

-

“You could write about us someday,” Zayn says, watching Niall type, lip curling over a cigarette as he speaks.

“What would I write?” Niall’s voice is an absentminded hum, but he’s listening to every one of Zayn’s words, clinging onto the syllables and combing through his sentences for any connotations.

“Hm,” Zayn exhales smoke and the smell makes Niall’s eyes water. “Write about the way we turn the world upside down, and how I can find the entire Atlantic in your eyes.”

“Do you love me?” Niall asks suddenly, voice soft and cautious.

Zayn remains still, blowing smoke at Niall and looking at him curiously. There’s a momentary pause, it feels like every sound in the universe has fallen into a sigh.

Niall waits, chest so tight it might explode.

“Write about it,” Zayn says quietly after a moment. “Write about the way I fell in love with you.”

-

But things aren’t always like that. It gets dark and people talk about the way Zayn comes home with blood on his hands every night. Niall pretends not to listen to the neighbors when they talk about how a lovely boy like him is being ruined by that filthy ruthless gangster.

He can’t blame them, sometimes the shouting gets too loud and it feels like it can push tremors out of his jarred bones and start up earthquakes around their small house. Sometimes Niall can’t remember why he fell in love with Zayn, because the porcelain has been smashed again and they’ve broken every last glass in the house so now they drink tea with their stained hands. Zayn apologizes in the morning, he always does, but Niall still has to clean up the broken glass and his broken heart and sweep it all into the trash.

“We need to talk about it,” Niall says one night when Zayn’s eyes are on fire, trembling to contain the urge to break something. “We never talk, Zayn.”  
  
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Zayn says, voice rigid like bricks falling into mismatched places. “I want to - I need to let it out.”

“I can’t let you do that,” Niall says, and he can almost feel his body folding in on itself, afraid of the way Zayn’s looking at him, reckless and dark.

“You said you’d help me _heal_!” Zayn croaks, voice rising in desperation, humiliation that he’s begging for this. His fingers reach out like they’re trying to grab onto something, but Niall is already safely out of the way. “You said - you said this is what you were _here_ for!”  
  
Niall’s crying now, eyes wet and frightened and guilty. “Zayn, no, please, I can’t let you -”

But this is another losing battle, because he’s already moving in, trying to put Zayn back together in one piece, breaking himself in the process. Zayn’s hands are large and heavy, his body cowering over Niall’s, and the last thing Niall remembers is that Zayn’s shoulders blot out all the lights in the room.

-

His mother pulls the gloves off her fingers and lets the sink fill with water for the dishes. “I haven’t seen you much lately.”

Niall sits on the couch and blankly stares at his shoes.

The sound of running water echoes around the clean, white walls of his parents’ house. It feels different from what he’s grown used to, different since he moved out a year ago.

“You’re not getting much sleep either,” his mother says. “I can tell.”

“I’m fine,” Niall says emotionlessly.

“That boy,” his mother mutters, shaking her head as she loads dishes into the sink. Every clatter of porcelain makes Niall jump. “I swear one day he’s going to tear you apart.”

Niall stays quiet, pulling the thick sweater tighter over the large purple bruises blooming underneath, and thinks to himself, _He already has_.

\--

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you like it, pleaase tell me what you think x


End file.
